Leslie's Early Years: The Pineapple Pilferer
by FantasyIslander65
Summary: Leslie has an encounter with one of Tattoo's animal buddies. Fifth in the 'Early Years' series.


**A/N:** _There were a lot of comedic bits on_ Fantasy Island _that involved the notorious Chester the Chimp, often making trouble for poor Tattoo, but not too many featuring Pepper the Parrot. I thought it might be fun to create a story that involved Tattoo's lesser-known animal friend. There's also another brief reference to the 10/25/1980 episode "The Devil and Mandy Breem / Instant Millionaire", second story arc (not the first as I stated by mistake in the previous story), with Arte Johnson. You may also recognize the reference to "Cornelius and Alphonse / The Choice" (first story arc), original airdate May 6, 1979 (one of the so-called "Sunday Special" episodes), with Red Buttons and Billy Barty. This tale directly follows "The Birthday Gift"._

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§ § § -- August 6, 1980

All through the year and a half Leslie had been on Fantasy Island, Tattoo had been having problems with Chester the Chimp. Chester had a sort of avian sidekick in Pepper the Parrot, although the bird caused nowhere close to the amount of trouble Chester did. Chester tended to get Tattoo into quite a bit of trouble while somehow managing to avoid his own implication. The last straw came for Tattoo after Chester started stealing things, and for a while he had advised Roarke and Leslie that they might want to be sure they didn't leave the doors unlocked or the windows open in the main house. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to extend the same mandate to his own car; as it turned out, not only was the car scaled for Tattoo, it was also just the right size for Chester—and somehow the feisty simian had actually learned to drive it. Tattoo had spent considerable time mulling over ways to get rid of Chester, but so far nothing humane had occurred to him.

He was considering it again today, after Chester had stolen Tattoo's car for at least the tenth time that summer, brainstorming madly and pacing Roarke's study while Roarke was on the phone and Leslie, assigned to go through a fresh stack of fantasy-request letters, was trying to ignore Tattoo's attempt to wear out the Persian carpet. It might have worked, except that occasionally Tattoo muttered to himself in French, and his gravel-voiced musing kept penetrating her concentration till she no longer knew what she was reading. It wasn't till Roarke had hung up that she realized she was looking at another letter from Fred Catlett, the man who wanted to be a millionaire for a weekend.

Fortunately for Leslie, Tattoo's pacing had finally attracted Roarke's attention, and he now sat watching his assistant in puzzlement for a moment. At last he inquired, "Tattoo, what are you doing?"

Tattoo halted in the midst of another trip toward the windows. "Thinking."

"And blazing a trail across the rug," Leslie said unexpectedly. "I can't even think with you going back and forth, over and over like that. Look, Mr. Roarke, I only just realized that this letter is from that guy Fred Catlett—that one who wrote back in May asking to become a millionaire. And this letter is even longer than the first one." She held it up for him to see. "I've been sitting here for about twenty minutes staring at it, but with Tattoo hiking across the wilderness over there, it took me all this time to really see what I was reading. Not that I'm mad, but it's been distracting."

"I'm certain it was," Roarke agreed. "What's on your mind, my friend?"

"Chester," Tattoo replied succinctly.

"Did he steal your car again?" asked Roarke indulgently, picking up a pen and making a notation on a sheet of paper already half covered with a list of items.

"Oh, boss," Tattoo groaned, "do you realize he's been doing it all summer? I've been spending a fortune in gas because he drives all over the island. I think he's half human—I never heard of a chimpanzee that could drive. But every time I try to come up with a way to get rid of him, I just can't."

"I can see his point," Leslie said to Roarke. "Remember when I cleaned out the spare-room closet in June, and it was crammed with things that you didn't even recognize? Stuff Chester probably snitched from who-knows-where?"

"It was all small stuff," Tattoo said, "but there was a _lot_ of it."

Roarke regarded them both for a moment, then apparently decided for some reason to play devil's advocate. "What about when he helped you get the better of Cornelius Kelly and Alphonse?…or have you forgotten?"

"No, I'm not too likely to forget _that,"_ Tattoo said dryly, and Roarke and Leslie grinned at each other. At the time Chester had been worried about Tattoo, in his own primitive way, and had turned out to be a pivotal force for Tattoo's side, to the point that even Roarke had been forced to concede that maybe, just this once, Chester had proven he could put himself up to something besides mischief. "But," Tattoo continued, "he's back to his old ways again. And besides, that was more than a year ago. Whatever goodwill he built up back then, well…he's completely destroyed it by now, and then some."

Roarke said, "Frankly, my friend, I don't see that you have much control over the problem. I don't believe you can do much more than to keep your own doors and windows locked, and stop leaving your car key in the ignition."

Leslie's eyes popped and she giggled loudly. "No wonder Chester keeps stealing your car!" she exclaimed.

Tattoo glowered. "If I put the key away, he'll just figure out how to hotwire it."

Roarke and Leslie burst out laughing, but before anyone could add to the discussion, the phone rang again and Roarke picked it up. Leslie folded the Catlett letter and stuffed it back into its envelope. "Cheer up, Tattoo," she said. "Maybe we'll get lucky and I'll find a letter in here from someone who owns a circus and needs a chimp."

"Everyone's a comedian," Tattoo said sourly. "I guess the boss is right—there's nothing I can do about it. Hey…just exactly what did you find in that closet back in June when you cleaned it out?"

"Loads of odds and ends," Leslie remembered. "Things like paperback books, and remote controls to TV sets, and perfume bottles. And oh my gosh, Tattoo, you should've seen all the jewelry! There were rings and necklaces and bracelets and earrings…I even found a diamond hair clip in there. It was all stashed in bags and boxes, and when I asked Mariki about it, she just said that she kept finding all this miscellaneous stuff on the floor when she came in there to clean, and she'd just toss it into a box to get it out of the way."

"She never thought about where it might have come from?" Tattoo said in surprise. "That's odd—I know Mariki's aware of what a kleptomaniac Chester can be. So was it all finally claimed?"

Once the closet had been cleaned out and Leslie had brought all the mysterious items to Roarke's attention, he had told her to take them to the police station in Amberville, then put an ad in the _Fantasy Island Chronicle_ listing the lost items and stating they could be claimed in the sheriff's office. For most of the summer, Michiko had told Leslie, there had been a fairly steady procession of folks coming in to look over the assortment, and a few per week had discovered things that belonged to them and taken them home. "Most of the jewelry found its way back to its owners," Leslie said, "and I think a couple of the remotes went home too. But we wound up donating the paperbacks to the library, and nobody ever claimed that diamond hair clip." She eyed Tattoo curiously. "Was there ever a guest who claimed they were going to sue because they had one that got stolen?"

"Not that I remember," Tattoo said. "Well, you know how it goes—if no one comes for it by December, then it'll be yours. And I think it'll look very pretty on you."

She smiled, a bit embarrassed, but had no chance to otherwise acknowledge his compliment since Roarke concluded the call then. "Set those letters aside for now, Leslie," he said. "I need you to go to the pineapple plantation and pick up the monthly allotment to take back to the hotel. When you get to the plantation, make sure the overseer gives you a receipt, and bring that back to me after you've dropped off the fruit at the hotel. And this is very important: be sure that Jean-Claude counts the pineapples. There will be fifty of them, and that's all the plantation has to spare until the harvest next month. Wait while he does it, if you must."

"I hope I don't have to," she muttered, balking slightly at the idea of facing the overly touchy French chef again. She turned hopefully to Tattoo. "Will you come with me?"

Tattoo knew why she asked. "Don't let him get to you, Leslie," he said. "He's all talk and he won't really hurt you."

"He's right, my child," Roarke said warmly. "Drive carefully."

"I will," she said automatically, wondering if she might be lucky enough to find that this was Jean-Claude's day off. "I'll be back in a while."

By now Leslie was a more relaxed driver, and had gained enough confidence in her own ability that quite a load had been taken off Roarke and Tattoo in the course of their weekday preparations for the fantasies. The pineapple plantation was located on the other side of the island about a mile or so past the high school, within sight of Mount Tutumoa, the island's highest point. She piloted the car down the long dirt drive that led to a small ranch house surrounded by a cluster of numerous bunkhouses for the plantation employees, pulling to a stop near a whitewashed barn that dwarfed every other building on the property. A group of men near the barn turned to watch her; as soon as she got out of the car, they waved and called, "Hello, Miss Leslie!" She waved back.

The overseer emerged from the barn. "Ah, Miss Leslie. Here for Mr. Roarke's order for the hotel?"

Leslie nodded. "He told me to bring back the receipt for him too."

"No problem," the overseer said and retreated into the barn, reappearing a minute later with a large wooden crate. Leslie put down the tailgate of the station wagon and he shoved the crate of fruit inside, then slammed it shut for her and pulled a folded sheet of paper from a shirt pocket. "Here's the receipt. Is there anything else Mr. Roarke needed?"

"No, I don't think so," she said. "Thank you."

The plantation employees waved her off, and soon she was back on the Ring Road toward what she thought of as the "home" side of the island. The trip to the hotel took her about forty-five minutes, and she met no other vehicles the entire way, which still sometimes astonished her. How her guardian had managed to keep his island such an unspoiled paradise was a mystery to her.

In the hotel's empty parking lot, she stopped the car near the kitchen entrance and patted the pocket of her jeans to reassure herself that the receipt was still there. At the same moment, she heard the flapping of wings and twisted in her seat, seeing a large, colorful parrot perched on the tailgate.

"Hi, Pepper," she said to the bird, who squawked at her. Turning back around in the driver's seat, she swung out of the car and hesitated, trying to gather the courage to go to the kitchen door and face Jean-Claude. _All right, Leslie Hamilton, here goes nothing. Remember what Tattoo said—he's all bark and no bite, so don't—_

Her mental pep talk was interrupted by more squawking and wing-flapping, and she turned back toward the car just in time to see Pepper take to the air, clutching a small pineapple in his claws. Leslie gasped loudly in horror.

"Pepper, get back here!" she shouted after the fleeing parrot. "You dirty bird! You're going to get me shot at sunrise for sure!" About to give chase, she was halted by the sound of the kitchen door opening. Her heart sank when she recognized Jean-Claude.

He strolled toward her, a scowl on his features. "What is ze matter 'ere?"

_Oh no,_ Leslie thought, trying not to let herself quail under his threatening glare. "That parrot just stole one of the pineapples I brought over from the plantation."

Jean-Claude's expression turned even more sour. "You nevair catch him, _mademoiselle,"_ he said flatly. "You get me new fruit."

"I _can't!"_ Leslie cried, at wits' end. "The harvest isn't for four more weeks, and the plantation'll never let me have another one!" In her desperation, she could think of only one thing to do, and promptly did it: she fled in the direction she had seen Pepper take off in. It was fortunate that even the small pineapple he had taken had some weight, since it slowed him down enough that the delay Jean-Claude had caused hadn't been quite enough got him to completely disappear from her sight. She raced over the manicured lawn of the hotel, across the Ring Road and along the vegetation growing at the roadside, trying her hardest to keep Pepper within her sight. "Pepper, you get back here right now!" she shouted. "If you don't come back, I swear I'm going to pluck you!!"

The trees swallowed her view of the sky and the parrot, so that she had to rely on her ears for any telltale sounds. This wasn't easy; tropical birds seemed to be raising a ruckus from every tree in the area. Leslie scowled in frustration; personally, she didn't feel one lousy pineapple was worth all this trouble, but Roarke had said that the pineapple plantation allowed only a set number of fruits for delivery before the mid-September harvest, and she had been told to see that the silly things were counted before she returned to the main house. Undoubtedly Jean-Claude would expect the full order of 50 pineapples, and she didn't need a reason to make him any more disgruntled than he normally was. So it was imperative that she get the stolen fruit back.

She prowled through the trees, occasionally calling the bird's name, but not really expecting a response. Now and then she muttered empty threats that revolved around what she planned to do to Pepper if and when she caught him, her annoyance and panic growing with equal speed. Time began to slip away from her as she peered frantically up one tree after another, trying to spot Pepper's brightly colored plumage. "You stupid bird," she grumbled at one point, picking her way through the trees and squinting into countless thousands of green leaves. "You've been hanging around Chester too long."

Half an hour passed before she finally admitted defeat, and she collapsed against a tree, wondering what kind of consequences awaited her. Jean-Claude would certainly rant and rave till steam poured out of his ears, but she was actually more afraid of what Roarke would say when he found out what had happened. She could just imagine it now: _"Leslie, how could you allow that parrot to get away with such a thing? You should have been able to catch him with no trouble whatsoever! Perhaps I had better assign deliveries like this to someone who is more responsible, hm?"_ She covered her face with her hands and groaned aloud in despair.

And that was when she heard it: "Good morning!" It was the unmistakable voice of Pepper, and it sounded quite close. She lifted her face from her hands and peered cautiously around her, afraid to move too suddenly for fear Pepper would take off again. It took her a couple of minutes before she finally spotted the bird in the crotch of two branches of a willow tree not far away. He was perched right atop the stolen pineapple, clucking and muttering, occasionally emitting noises that sounded to Leslie like mocking giggles. It made her clench her teeth in frustration, and she began to take careful steps forward, parting the drooping willow stems like curtains as she drew closer to the tree trunk.

She froze when Pepper looked right at her with one beady eye. For what seemed like the rest of the afternoon, girl and bird stared at each other; then Pepper broke the stalemate by taunting out of the blue, "Come and get it, sweetcakes."

Leslie saw red. Sucking in a breath through her gritted teeth, she took huge tiptoeing steps toward the trunk; incredibly, Pepper just sat there and watched her coming. Slowly she stretched both arms out, and to her immense amazement Pepper let her wrap both hands around him and extract him from the tree. "Gotcha," she muttered triumphantly before realizing that it took both hands to keep a firm grip on Pepper, and she didn't have an extra with which to carry the pineapple!

She glanced back and forth between Pepper and the pineapple, trying to figure out a way out of this ridiculous dilemma, and finally decided the best way was to secure Pepper against her chest with one hand and carry the fruit with the other. To her relief, it worked, and she started back through the sunny woods toting her cargo and hoping Pepper wouldn't suddenly change his mind about allowing her to carry him around.

It took her another twenty minutes to find her way out of the grove of trees and onto the Ring Road, and she lengthened her stride across the hotel grounds. The station wagon sat in the parking lot just where she had left it, the tailgate down and the back empty. She marched right up to the kitchen door and used the pineapple to knock on it.

Jean-Claude himself opened it; when he saw her, his eyes got comically huge. "You catch that bird, _mademoiselle?"_ he exclaimed.

"Got the pineapple, too," she told him, handing him the fruit. "Number fifty."

"Zat 'ow many ze plantation send?" Jean-Claude asked, already turning back to the crate of pineapples that sat atop a long stainless-steel table.

Leslie told him, "I've got the receipt. Mr. Roarke said you should count them. All right, you dumb bird, quit it. I'm taking you back to the main house so Tattoo can deal with you. Just wait till I tell him what you did."

Jean-Claude peered at her oddly, then studied Pepper, who had evidently decided he was tired of his imprisonment and had started squirming energetically in Leslie's grip. After a moment he warned, almost solicitously, "Zat bird bite you."

"Not if I can help it," Leslie said grimly. "See you later." Still clutching the struggling parrot, she marched back to the car, lifted the tailgate back into place, and drove to the main house one-handed.

The moment she stepped into the inner foyer, Roarke looked up and asked, "What on earth took you so long?" Then he peered more closely at her. "What have you got there?"

"Tattoo, help me," Leslie said, now gripping Pepper with both hands. Tattoo turned from the desk and stared in disbelief.

"Is that Pepper?" he exclaimed. "How'd you end up with him?"

"He almost got me in trouble," she told him. "What do I do with him?"

"Just take him to his perch over there," Tattoo said. "Let him go, Leslie." She gave him a dubious look, and he nodded. With a shrug, she released Pepper, who did indeed fly to the perch in the corner of the room.

"What do you mean, he almost got you into trouble?" Roarke questioned, rising from his chair. "I think perhaps you'd better explain just what happened."

Leslie launched into her story while Roarke and Tattoo listened with great interest; their expressions grew decidedly incredulous the more they heard, until finally she said, "So I gave Jean-Claude the pineapple and then brought that thieving bird back here. I wanted to prove that he was the reason I took such a long time delivering the pineapples."

"Pepper," Tattoo admonished lightly, his dark eyes dancing with mirth. "You really should be ashamed of yourself, you know." Pepper squawked indignantly and flapped his wings a couple of times.

"Perhaps he's been friends with Chester a little too long," Roarke echoed the thought Leslie had had some time earlier. Hearing him say it suddenly made her remember Chester's pilfering, and she abruptly connected this with Pepper's pineapple theft and then the mass of items she had cleared from the spare-room closet two months before.

"Mr. Roarke," she said, turning to her guardian with wide eyes, "we were convinced that Chester took all the stuff I found in that closet. What if it was actually Pepper who took it instead?"

Roarke frowned slightly, his own eyes widening for a moment as he considered this. "You may have something there, Leslie," he said thoughtfully after a long moment. "You did say that all the items you found there were small things, and Chester clearly has his mind set on larger prey." He cast Tattoo an amused, ironic look. "And I can't imagine how many times we have propped open that round stained-glass window in the spare room. I believe you have just solved that little mystery, Leslie. Very good thinking." He smiled at her, and she grinned back, shrugging.

"Do you think he might have learned something from this?" she wondered.

Roarke laughed and sat back behind the desk again. "Pepper is a bird," he reminded her. "He could never grasp the concept of thievery being wrong any more than Chester could, no matter how smart either of them may be."

"Well, he sure seemed to be enjoying himself," she said with a sour glance at Pepper. "I mean, really, Mr. Roarke, do you know what he said when I finally found him? He said, 'Come and get it, sweetcakes'!"

Roarke and Tattoo both stared at her, then looked at each other and stifled smiles at precisely the same instant. "Didn't know he could say that," Tattoo said, managing to sound remarkably casual, though his grin got the better of him.

"Honestly, it's not funny!" she insisted, her earlier anxiety over the missing pineapple finally catching up with her. "I thought half the island was going to come after me! Jean-Claude said I should get him a replacement fruit, but Mr. Roarke said we get only a certain number of those things before harvest. And he sent fifty of 'em—that's how many I was supposed to show up with, not one more or less! If I hadn't gotten that pineapple back, I'd have had Jean-Claude, Mr. Roarke and the whole blessed pineapple plantation chasing me all over Fantasy Island!!"

Tattoo, eyes enormous, covered his mouth with both hands and pivoted away from her, shoulders beginning to shake with barely-suppressed laughter. Roarke, who had leaned farther and farther forward over the desk in surprise at her diatribe, began to laugh despite himself. "Leslie, Leslie!" he exclaimed, leaning against the back of his chair and shaking his head through his mirth. "I never meant to make you think the shipment was a matter of life or death. For heaven's sake, child, it was only one fruit. Next time, don't trouble yourself about it. I'm certain the plantation could have spared one extra pineapple to replace the one Pepper stole. And if Jean-Claude gives you any trouble in regard to such a thing, by all means let me know, and I'll speak to him. All right?"

"But Mr. Roarke, I—" she began, only to be interrupted by the ringing telephone.

Roarke picked it up instantly. "Yes?" he said. Tattoo, having regained control over himself, and Leslie watched him while he listened for a few minutes. Then he frowned in surprise. "Are you quite certain?" A moment or two later his amused gaze settled on Leslie. "I suspect she won't be very happy to hear that. And you counted them how many times?" Roarke chuckled at the answer. "Yes," he went on after a moment, "I know she should have, but I am afraid the parrot was uppermost on her mind. That's quite all right, Jean-Claude, thank you." With that he hung up and regarded Leslie with a broad smile. "Well, young lady, it appears that you made a slight mistake."

Leslie sighed deeply. "That figures. What'd I do?"

"Jean-Claude," Roarke said, still smiling, "tells me that after you left, he counted those pineapples four times. And each time, the sum he came up with was fifty-one."

"Fifty-_one?!"_ Leslie echoed, looking stunned.

Roarke nodded. "Yes, indeed."

Outrage began to creep into her expression. "You mean," she said slowly, "that I ran after Pepper, managed to catch him, and brought back that pineapple, and it was all for nothing?"

"So it would appear," Roarke said, sympathetic and amused all at once. "Didn't I tell you to be sure Jean-Claude counted the contents of the crate? Perhaps if you had remained long enough to watch while he did so, you wouldn't have such a feeling of futility now."

"Boss," Tattoo broke in then, taking pity on Leslie, "it wouldn't have made any difference if she _had_ stayed. She'd still have found out there were 51 pineapples, and she wouldn't be any less mad."

"You didn't tell me to count them before I got them to the hotel," Leslie added. "And I really would have stayed to watch Jean-Claude count them, but before he even came out the door, Pepper stole that pineapple. And all I could think about was getting it back, after that. How could I have known there was an extra one in the crate?"

Roarke glanced back and forth between them, then shook his head and chuckled in resignation. "You two are a little too logical," he said good-naturedly. "Perhaps we should simply consider the matter closed, and get on with the rest of the day. Let me have the receipt, Leslie, and you can resume going through those letters."

She dug the paper out of her pocket and handed it to Roarke, settling in her usual chair beside the desk. "I think I'm going to start looking for that circus owner in need of a chimp, and see if he could use a parrot as well," she muttered, gathering up the stack of envelopes. Roarke and Tattoo grinned at each other and settled back to work.

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_The next story takes place a good eight months after this one (with five transcribed episodes in between, which is the reason for the time gap). Thanks in the meantime for your feedback!_


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